


Rebirth

by Tiarn



Category: Maleficent (Disney Movies)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Wing Grooming, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28169097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiarn/pseuds/Tiarn
Summary: No tomb-bloom ever grew on Conall’s final resting place. In the early days, when Borra came here to sit and think, the lack of it made him wonder. Perhaps Maleficent wasn’t the only dark fey to carry a piece of the phoenix, and he’s sure he saw a spark of fire in Conall’s eyes once or twice.
Relationships: Borra/Conall (Disney)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bakcheia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakcheia/gifts).



> I saw this prompt and realised I, too, wished to see the tatty birdman groomed! Happy Yuletide!

Something in the cavern is different today. Borra feels it as soon as he sets down on the lip of one of the entrance tunnels. He freezes, old instinct flaring to life in his chest. Different too often means _danger_ , and stopping to feel such things out properly kept him safe from hunters for many years, warning him of traps before they sprung. 

He hasn’t thought of traps in a long time.

The tunnels are quiet but for the wind and the rustle of feathers. His own, warm and living, and those left behind by others, the dry debris of old moults fallen into the curves of the stone. There are fewer old feathers each time he comes, the wind slowly stirring them away with none to replace them. Not many have reason to seek out the ancestral nest these days, though Borra comes often.

It isn’t a trap, he decides. It’s… he can’t let himself think it, but his heart gives an odd flip, as if he’s entered a swift dive while standing on solid ground.

The feeling stays with him as he takes flight, and he flares out his wings to slow his fall into the open ‘skies’ of the main cavern. Another day, he’d tuck in his wings and dive for real, dropping fast and certain as a stone; today he approaches the grave with slow anticipation, blood pounding in his ears. Could it be...?

No tomb-bloom ever grew on Conall’s final resting place. In the early days, when Borra came here to sit and think, the lack of it made him wonder. Perhaps Maleficent wasn’t the only dark fey to carry a piece of the phoenix, and he’s sure he saw a spark of fire in Conall’s eyes once or twice. 

But days turned into weeks, months, years, and nothing happened, except that the grave-grasses grew longer and lusher, and the cavern around the grave became ever quieter as the last of the dark fey left. Borra kept coming though, and—maybe to combat the silence—he began to talk, to tell Conall of what he’d missed. To complain that it’s just like Conall to leave him to deal with Conall’s dream all by himself. “You would say this is character building for me,” he grumbles at the grassy knoll more than once. This new world of peace leaves him feeling off-kilter and flailing as a fledgling. The cavern is the only place where he still feels centred.

Not today, though. Today, the world wobbles on its axes, because the grassy mound has split open, and Conall is sitting on the fresh earth.

Borra lands clumsily, and Conall blinks slowly up at him.

“You’re alive.” Borra embraces him without thought. Conall is warm and firm, smelling of feathers and earth. Really, truly alive.

Conall gives a low laugh when Borra steps back. “Yes. Yes, I think I am.” A ring of fire flares briefly in his eyes. The phoenix _did_ bless him, then, though this slow, quiet awakening is as typical of him as Maleficent’s rapid and raging inferno of rebirth was of her. Conall stretches his wings out to their full extent and smiles. “How long have I been gone?”

“Five years,” Borra tells him, and Conall pulls his wings back in, startled. “How long did it feel?”

Conall shakes his head, his eyes still wide. “Not so long as that. I have been moss and roots and earth, growing back to myself. Time was… different.” Conall frowns at a bit of grass that has caught in his hair. He picks it out, looking up in question at Borra’s laugh. 

Borra tries and fails to stop. Conall’s come back from the dead, and he still cares about dirt. “It’s just—good to see you, old friend.”

“I heard you talking to me, sometimes” Conall says. “I thought you said—is it true, that we're at peace with the humans?” He is looking past Borra, to the vast quietness of the cavern, where there's only wind and trees and water, and he goes still as he realises there are no fey here but for the two of them.

Borra grips his shoulder. “Yes. The world you dreamed is the one that is. Our people live under open skies once more. I can take you to them.”

Conall searches his expression, seems to find the reassurance he needs there. He exhales. “I would like that. But first"—he looks down at himself again, frowning in distaste—“I would like to cleanse myself of grave-dirt.”

He looks just fine to Borra, bright as a new leaf, dark skin glowing with health, but Borra isn’t so rock-headed that he doesn’t know that cleansing sometimes has nothing to do with dirt. Although Conall is picky enough about dirt, too.

“I'll wait for you,” he says, though he doesn’t want to leave Conall’s side. What if this is a dream that will break as soon as Conall is gone from sight?

Conall tilts his head. “Will you come with me? I have been alone for too long and”—his gaze goes to the empty ‘skies’—“though I believe you when you say our people live, I don’t wish to be alone again so soon.” He smiles. “And it is hard to groom one’s own wings properly.”

It is, as Borra knows well. Ritualised grooming is a core part of their culture, a social bonding and reassurance, connecting the individual to the community. But it’s something he’s never felt comfortable with. After he lost his small desert clan as a fledgling, he grew too used to making do with only his own hands. The habit grew into a form of defiance, an angry satisfaction in making his own feathers worthless to the hunters that had slaughtered his parents, his friends, everyone except him. Even when he found the other dark fey, that mark of defiance had been too deep-rooted to give up.

But Conall is alive, and Borra can deny him nothing today. More than that—he finds he _wants_ to groom him, needs to reassure himself that Conall is truly here and part of the world again. 

“All right,” he says.

***

They go to the sacred hot springs in the forest region of the cavern. Conall looks at home here, his wings the same deep ebony as the dappled shadows. Old-growth trees and vines twine around the series of pools and waterfalls, each a different temperature, from the smallest and hottest at the top to the clear diving pool at the lowest point, large enough for multiple families to swim and play. Back when all the dark fey in the world except one lived in the cavern, the pools were never quiet.

But today there are only the two of them. 

Conall hesitates, and Borra sees dread once more rise in him, that they are alone not because the others have flown to better places but because there is no one else left. Conall’s gaze lingers on Borra’s tattered wings. “Are we still hunted, then?”

Borra shakes his head. “No, the humans do not hunt us any more. I just...” He doesn’t know how to let go of the past, of that anger that kept him alive and fighting for so much of his life.

But Conall seems to take that as reassurance enough, smiling faintly. “Some things don’t change,” he agrees easily, slipping out of his clothing and diving into the cool waters of the deepest pool. His body is sleekly muscled, his long hair darkened in the water and streaming out like river grasses as he moves, wings glistening with water droplets, alive and vibrant and _Conall_. Borra watches him, his throat tight.

Conall goes to pull up soaproots planted for that purpose along the water's edge, and he pauses at the sight of how the plants have multiplied in the absence of use. His wings stiffen, the feathers nearest his back flattening right down. But he doesn’t ask Borra to repeat his reassurance, even though the fear is back in his eyes. He only asks softly, “Are there—do they have springs in the Moors?”

When Borra doesn’t answer, he turns to find Borra standing frozen on the edge of the pool. “What’s wrong?”

Anxiety holds Borra still. He feels on the edge of a precipice. No wonder Conall doubts the peace Borra has told him of, with Borra's appearance still made for a world full of hunters. But to fly through open skies with his feathers shining… it’s an optimism he doesn’t know if he’s brave enough for. 

He thinks of five years of fey children uncaged by cavern walls, of fey living with humans and humans living with fey. Of Queen Aurora’s children, who have never lived in a world where fey and humans weren’t at peace. He’s flown with the young prince, who whooped in pure delight, not a shadow of wariness on his small features as he clung to Borra’s neck. It was… fun.

“Borra?”

Borra shakes himself. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.” He begins to unpiece his own clothing. “I was just thinking that I should wash too.” He cannot meet Conall’s eyes. “If… if you will help me.”

Surprise flashes across Conall’s face, but his voice is warm. “Of course I will return the favour.”

***

There are many kinds of special plants for bathing purposes, for oils and soaps and scents. Quantities and varieties enough grow here to satisfy even Conall's picky forest-fey obsession. They rinse off first in the deeper pool, the water carrying away dust and lather, before moving up to one of the warmer, smaller pools to soak. 

Conall finds the sweet-smelling oil he likes to use on his own hair, and Borra helps him work it into the long lengths. But Conall’s attention to his own appearance is less than Borra expected. Conall waits impatiently until Borra has washed his wings, and then turns his focus on Borra with, well, glee.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been itching to do this,” Conall admits as he works the feather-soap under what feels like every inch of Borra’s wings. It smells of warmth and sunlight. “You’re always so ragged.”

“I wash,” Borra says defensively. Not as thoroughly as this, maybe, and more often in dust than water. But not _never_. He’s not completely feral. 

“Dust baths don’t count, not the way you do them.”

Borra huffs. “Typical forest fey. Not everyone has time to lounge around bathing all day.”

Conall’s hands still briefly on his shoulders. “What do you do all day then, now?”

Borra gives an annoyed wriggle, and Conall starts moving again. Borra's not going to admit it, but it feels good to be touched like this. Especially since it’s Conall, with his strong, supple hands and the deep hum he makes low in his throat as he works. 

He tells Conall about life on the Moors. “There’s a mixed human-fey village now, on the border.” He can hear the surprise in his own voice. “It… mostly works.”

Conall makes that hum in his throat again, a sound of amusement this time. He has coaxed a branch with a bit of magic to form a long-toothed comb and is taking far too much satisfaction from attacking Borra’s hair with it.

“It doesn’t work _perfectly,_ ” Borra objects. “There’s fairly constant arguing about how things should be done.”

“You, arguing? I’m shocked,” Conall says dryly, pulling himself up to sit on the lip of the pool with his legs dangling in the water. He pulls Borra back so that his knees press against the back of Borra’s wings. Borra shivers with an electric awareness of Conall’s closeness as Conall’s fingers continue to comb through his hair. Nudity is boringly mundane to fairies, but this isn't. At all.

“ _I_ am shocked,” Borra admits. “I didn’t think it would work at all. Especially not without you.”

Conall pauses, shakes his head. "You always knew as well as I that we could not stay as we were, our whole world this cavern. You dreamed a future of freedom for our people just as much as I did. It doesn't surprise me that you have helped make it work."

Silence falls between them for a time, with only the soft persistence of Conall’s hands working the knots out of his hair. The pressure on his scalp is strangely soothing. His hair is longer than he’d realised, brushed out while wet. He’s never really paid much attention to it. Maybe he should cut it. But Conall seems to like it, and that’s a strong enough argument not to.

***  
  


When Conall has un-knotted and brushed and washed him to his satisfaction, they rinse off and move to a sunny outcropping that is perfect for drying, the wind there warm and caressing. They each stretch out their wings and shake their feathers free of water, and Conall carefully wrings out his long hair, twisting as he goes. Borra helps, under Conall’s murmured instructions.

In the brighter light, the tattoos on Conall’s skin gleam. Borra wants to touch, but instead he extends his retractable grooming claws and raises his hands meaningfully. Conall nods and spreads his wings out. It’s satisfying to preen the feathers with his claws, spreading the oils evenly. Conall's head falls back and his eyes slit close. Borra's attention is drawn to the long, smooth line of his throat as he lets out a long sigh of contentment.

Maybe there's something in Conall's obsession with grooming after all. Especially since Borra being the one doing this means Conall ends up smelling like he belongs to Borra.

When Conall turns him so he can groom Borra’s own wings, Borra can’t stop himself from trembling, feeling each feather slicked neatly into place with an intensity that leaves him unable to speak. Conall stands behind him, and not being able to see his face makes the whole thing strangely more intimate. 

He starts when Conall touches his hair, now damp rather than soaked. 

“Will you mind if I braid it?”

Borra shakes his head. A desire to turn and pull Conall closer pulses through him, but he holds himself still as Conall separates out strands of his hair with infinite patience. He can hardly breathe as Conall ties off the ends with bits of magic and stands, releasing him.

He gets up and turns. The way Conall is looking at him… he takes a step closer, but Conall gestures down at the still surface of one of the pools.

“You should see yourself,” he says, and his tone is serious enough that Borra obeys.

Conall’s the one who went through a rebirth today, but it’s Borra who feels shaky and vulnerable as a hatchling as he stares down into his reflection. Almost, he doesn’t recognise himself, this sleek, strong warrior with proudly gleaming wings and a long neat mane of braids. His horns are polished, dark against the pale of his hair, and he twists this way and that, watching the reflections shift. He’s the only dark fey with those horns; the only surviving desert fey from his region. 

The only one. Panic floods him, and he wants to tear out the braids, to roll in the dust until his feathers are tattered and worthless once more.

Conall puts a hand on his shoulder. His eyes burn bright with understanding, and Borra's panic recedes, leaving only the loud, steady thud of his heartbeat. He swallows. Conall is so close he could count his eyelashes if he wanted to. He’s never noticed how long and fine they are before.

“Are you ready to take me to this new world of yours?” Conall asks, his breath warm against Borra’s skin.

Borra puts a hand over his and smiles. “Yes.”


End file.
